A Wolf Among Lions
by justadram
Summary: She hates them all, and Jaime finds it hard to understand why she does not count him among those she would rather see dead. Jaime/Sansa, Cersei, Tyrion; post series
1. The Lion's Den

**Title**: The Lion's Den  
><strong>Author<strong>: just_a_dram  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: ASOIAF  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Jaime/Sansa  
><strong>Rating<strong>: T for adult concepts  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 3085  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Sansa will always think of King's Landing as the lion's den.  
><strong>Author's Note<strong>: Part one of the A Wolf Among Lions series.

The Lion's Den

Sansa walks hands folded alongside her husband. Their shoes echo through the stone halls of the Red Keep, and she must measure her steps so she does not outpace his short stride.

"You did well tonight," Tyrion says, looking up at her, and his disfigured face comes better into focus as they pass a torch.

"I'm not the girl you married," she assures him.

If she was, she would hurry down this hallway so that he need struggle to keep up, but she would only be punishing the wrong Lannister. Cersei rots beneath Casterly Rock, living or dying at her pleasure. The thought brings a little smile to Sansa's lips.

The Lannisters shaped her, and she knows how to behave here in what she can't help but think of as the lion's den if she pauses too long and lets the memories creep in around her. She knows how to behave before the young queen, who might have more right to the Iron Throne, but who is no less dangerous than the family from whom she took it. Sansa's learned that and more. She likes to congratulate herself that she _has_ done well.

There is still so much more to do, however.

"I'm glad of it. You were sadder than a young girl should ever be."

Sansa takes a shallow breath. She doesn't want to speak of the past. She meant it: she's not the same girl. That girl sometimes feels like someone else entirely.

"Are you sad now, Lady Sansa?"

There is no taunting in his question, and she imagines he says it out of true concern.

She has done her best to appear happy. All evening she has sat cheerfully at his side, while he served her the choicest things off his plate. She had smiles and kind words for the queen and took care not to glance down the length of the broad wooden table. Even when she heard the heavy thud of a wine glass hitting the table and muffled twittering. She knew that sound for what it was: someone was too drunk to properly grasp their glass with a mostly useless golden hand.

"Sad? Of course not," she says brightly.

She hopes her response didn't sound too chirped, too false. She would not like Tyrion to know her heart. To allow people to see inside of you is to allow them to dominate you, to own you, it is tantamount to failure, and she has survived thus far: she cannot afford to fail now. She has encapsulated moments of happiness, where the world seems not so dark and threatening, but there are things she desperately wants that keep her from being content, keep her from sleeping at night.

"You're not unhappy at Casterly Rock?" he presses.

Unlike the Red Keep, she has only known Casterly Rock as her own, and she takes some satisfaction in reigning over the Lannister house, but it doesn't bring her real happiness. Only home could do that. But Casterly Rock is only temporary. Tyrion has assured her of that, and Jaime has done the same. That has been his pledge since he found her in the Vale, and he has promised that even should his brother forget where she belongs, he will not.

"The company isn't too bad, I hope. Jaime is not as charming as me, but you must settle for the the taller of the Lannister brothers, I suppose," Tyrion says with a grin.

Her cheeks flush, for it is Jaime more often than not who is responsible for making her feel something other than numbness. Petyr tried, but he could never train her not to blush. Her body betrays her in the most treacherous ways.

"He's very useful when I have questions," she says with practiced calm.

Jaime _is_ useful, despite what he might believe.

"Useful," Tyrion muses with a low chuckle that makes Sansa raise her chin just an inch. "Well, I'm not the least surprised at how well you do," he continues, his face turned serious. "You are every bit the lady I imagined you might become one day."

She smiles. It's almost entirely genuine.

"Thank you, my lord."

"Daenerys is fond of you. If you came to court more, you might become a true favorite."

Sansa manages to keep her countenance. "I have no wish to be a favorite." She sounds apologetic, which is just as she intended, but the thought of being confined within these walls once more is enough to make her want to gather up her skirts and take flight.

"I know it," he says with a crooked smile. "But I thought it worth saying."

"You wouldn't truly want me here, my lord. You're busy and I'd only be under foot," she says, tilting her head. "I'm better out of the way at Casterly Rock."

"Aren't I the one under foot?" he jokes.

She purses her lips, but says nothing.

"Come now, Sansa. Barely anyone will enjoy a jape at my expense these days. Do oblige me."

"You don't mean it," Sansa says, pausing as Tyrion stands feet astride before his door.

"In growing up, you did me no favors in growing even taller," he says with mock displeasure.

Yes, they are an odd pair. And entirely a mummer's farce.

"Sansa," he says in a low voice, and Sansa catches herself.

She has been staring at the wooden door, at a spot above his head, thinking how she once had no choice as to whether she shared a bed with her husband. How once she was just a girl at the mercy of the Lannisters, and it was only her husband's compassion that spared her.

"I wouldn't ask it of you, sweetling," he continues. "That delicate little nose of yours might snore, and I value my sleep."

Sansa silently castigates herself. She should know better than to betray herself by words or looks. It is not enough to merely talk sweetly, one must also look the part, never giving anything away. Petyr would be so displeased, and although she wants him out of her head, he whispers to her in moments like this, reminding her of his lessons and her continued failures.

"No, you performed admirably tonight, and I hear that you manage Casterly Rock with great skill. That's more than enough to ask of you after all my family has put you through, don't you think?"

"You've been nothing but kind," she responds without pause.

It is expedient to say so, but it is also true. She does not fear Tyrion Lannister anymore, but their arrangement is one borne out of practicality, not affection. Daenerys has no great love for the Lannisters or Starks, but they grace her court as relations of Tyrion, the man who helped her reclaim her kingdom. Their marriage ensures Sansa's safety, but she does not feel so grateful that she would ever walk through that door. Even if he demanded it of her. Thankfully, he would not.

For all she knows, someone else warms his bed. She certainly wouldn't begrudge him that.

Whatever relief she might take in that, however, is spoiled by something he said. "I must own I'm curious who it is that reports on me from Casterly Rock. Have you drunk enough wine to loosen your lips, my lord?" she asks with a small smile that is meant to charm.

Tyrion waves off her concern. "You're pretty and polite and have a smile for everyone there, when for years they were faced with nothing but my father's demands. Which means I would have to pay out a great deal of gold to get them to report on you, and I have no interest in squandering what's left of the Lannister fortune on thickheaded guardsmen and serving girls."

Sansa could make a joke at her husband's expense about coin and girls, but she's is much too careful to tread on the tail of the lion. This gentled lion plays with dragons after all.

"No spies, no one lurking in the walls, Sansa. It's only talk between brothers, you understand."

Jaime. Jaime has said she's done well as the lady of Casterly Rock. There is no time to indulge in girlish pride over the revelation, however, since Tyrion immediately interrupts her thoughts.

"Which reminds me," he says, as he crosses his arms over his chest, "you have mistakenly walked in the wrong direction. _Your_ chamber is that way." He nods back the way they've come, back toward the chamber that has been arranged for the Hand's wife. "Unless you only meant to accompany your husband safely to his door."

He knows where she is headed. He must.

"It's a little indiscrete. Don't you think, my lady wife?" he asks, with an arched brow.

She is careful not to blink as she responds evenly, "I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, right under the queen's nose?"

"The queen?" Sansa parrots back, not understanding what he means to imply, and bargaining for time, as her mind works to figure it through.

"Well," he says, reaching up to rub the stub of what was once a nose, "I haven't got a nose, so you needn't be concerned about doing it under mine."

"Why should Queen Daenerys care about my comings and goings?" she asks, her voice rising slightly, while she attempts not to fist her hands at her side.

Her control is slipping away, as what makes her happiest feels threatened.

"She might not care at all," he says with a shrug.

Sansa wants to say that she thinks the queen is currently in the muscled arms of the Lord Commander and therefore, if Ser Jorah has any skill in pleasing a woman, Daenerys should spare no thought to where Sansa lays her head. But she bites her tongue. It is one thing to say such a thing to Jaime, who would no doubt find some mirth in Sansa's suspicions, but quite another to say it here in a corridor of the Red Keep, where someone other than her lord husband might be lurking.

"I only suggest a little discretion might be advisable. Perhaps a tryst tonight is _not_ a wise plan of action, considering how tenuous certain people's positions are. It took me no small amount of convincing, you know, to secure it in the first place."

She hates the implication that her visiting Jaime will place him in danger. She wouldn't have to be indiscrete if their chambers hadn't been put at opposite ends of the castle, but she knows that would be asking too much and she is being unreasonable.

"It isn't a tryst," she says, her back straightening, as she finally addresses his accusation.

Tyrion chuckles.

"It isn't," she insists. "I merely want to check on him."

Without turning her head, she'd watched Jaime stumble with uncertain steps from the hall hours earlier, and her heart had climbed into her throat, knowing she couldn't follow.

"Let him sleep it off, Sansa."

It's wise enough counsel, and yet…

She swallows before explaining, "He doesn't like it here."

"No more than you do," Tyrion says with a sigh.

It's true. Jaime gives way to his feelings. He has drank and scowled at table ever since they were both forced to come here, while she must sit straight backed and smile through it all. What Tyrion doesn't know, however, is that the only one she can crumble before is Jaime, and that on occasion she does. Going to him might be as comforting for her as she hopes it will be for him.

"Goodnight, my lord," she says with a little nod.

She won't be turned back from her purpose. The girl she once was would have scurried back to her room, but she isn't that girl anymore.

…

He'd seemed drunk enough that she'd wondered if she might find him draped over the bed, passed out. She's seen him like that before, and if that had been the case, Tyrion would have been right to urge her to let him sleep. But he is awake, slouched on the bed with his head in his hands, and she's glad she didn't listen to his brother.

His golden hair falls before his eyes, hiding them from her. He doesn't even look up at her as she approaches and lightly rests her hands on his shoulders. She murmurs his name, rubbing her thumbs over the blood red silk of his tunic. He will barely speak two words in the queen's presence, but he wears his family colors with the boldness of the lion of his house sigil.

She has been forced to come to King's Landing before, alone, and she had hoped it would be some different with him at her side. He is her senior by a score of name days, but she is better skilled by far at this game. He had an fearsome tutor—her lord husband amply demonstrates Tywin's legacy—but perhaps Jaime never truly wanted to learn. Jaime lost the game and by all rights should have lost his head as well.

It's a handsome head, she muses, as she moves to lean closer to him, to lecture him softly. She means to say that this won't be the last time they're asked to come here and that he must learn to put a brave face on for the world, but he stops her cold.

"You shouldn't be here," he says even as he reaches out to grip her upper arms, one hand tight against her flesh, the other a cold dead thing, pulling her between his legs in one swift movement.

She is thrown off balance and holds more tightly to his shoulders to keep her feet.

Instead of her intended sweet words, she finds herself saying, "You were selfish tonight." She bends down, until her face is even with his and she can smell the wine on him. "I'd like to pout and drink myself into oblivion too, you know. I hate it here just as much as you do. Shall I tell you why?"

"Then let's leave," he says, ignoring her question, as he lifts his green eyes clouded with drink to stare blearily up at her.

It's the desire of a child. To flee. She has felt it countless times.

"In the middle of the night?" she soothes, her sympathy replacing disappointment, as she moves to sit across his knee. Petyr said sympathy could be the death of you, and maybe it will be. Even now she cannot help but wonder if she has placed her faith in the wrong man. "You're too drunk to ride," she adds, cupping one cheek as she presses a kiss to the other. She could wish Jaime stronger, but it would be a pointless wish. "You'd lose your seat."

He did not shave this morning, and his beard is rough against her lips.

There are things she expects him to say, as her fingers trail over his neck, where she can feel his pulse twitch beneath his skin. She can imagine chastising him for leaving her alone in that wretched hall, as she slips her arms around his broad chest to stroke the planes of his back, her forehead resting against his shoulder. She can hear him bite back that the Dragon Queen brought him here to laugh at him with the baker's son seated above him. And perhaps she did. Two dozen seats between his and hers. Sansa had counted.

She believes he was unhappy with the distance between them. As unhappy as the distance made her. When they are not safe within the walls of Casterly Rock, he does not like the distance between them to be too great. Her safety is his prime concern. To be someone's priority in such a way… It is why she forgives him as best she can for his past wrongs, it is why she finds solace in his arms.

But he says nothing. He is silent except for his ragged breathing as his left hand drags over the sleeve of her gown, clutching at the fabric and skewing it on her shoulders.

She allows him to fondle her through her gown, to bunch her skirts in his hands, and she smiles to herself thinking of her lie to Tyrion not minutes earlier. Of course this is a tryst. How else is she to quiet his hurts and still a mind consumed by poisoned thoughts of the past?

"Take this off," he demands, breaking the silence as he gives up grappling with her gown.

It is difficult enough for him with the laces, but in his current state Sansa knows he wouldn't be able to free her from her gown. It isn't easy for Sansa either: she usually has someone to help her, but she angles she arm back and begins to tug on the laces he has clumsily loosened. Once she is mostly unlaced, he pulls roughly and she is suddenly bare to the cool night air and him, her grey gown a rumple of bodice and skirts trapped about her middle.

"Tell me about Winterfell," she says, as he rolls them over, his weight heavy upon her as she stares up into his suddenly too clear eyes.

They can't flee in the night, but she can disappear into her head, as much as he can disappear into her body.

"It was your home. You should tell me," he murmurs, as he presses a kiss to the hollow of her throat.

"Please," she whispers, as he fumbles with her smallclothes.

He knows what it is she wants. He teased her once that she was very easy to please: he only had to speak of her future in Winterfell and she melted for him. Only, he said it in cruder terms that made her flush red.

His breath against her skin—wet from his attentions—raises bumps along her arms and legs, as he shakily sighs, his good hand below as his golden one presses cold against her scalp, tangled in the locks of her unbound her.

"You'll sit your brother's chair and sleep in your father's bed. The men of the North will bend their knees to you. I'll raise the stones myself to make it so," he vows, as she bends her leg for him.

He has not only promised to keep her safe, he has promised to take her home. She wants to believe him. She wants to love the man who would make it so.


	2. The Lion's Mouth

**Title**: The Lion's Mouth  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: ASOIAF  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Jaime/Sansa  
><strong>Rating<strong>: T for adult concepts  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 2481  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Sometimes all he wants is to forget who they are and forget the rest of the world, but he's made a promise.  
><strong>Author's Note<strong>: Part two of the A Wolf Among Lions series.

The Lion's Mouth

The short days of winter have brought darkness earlier than Jaime would have liked. Darkness crept over the training yard hours earlier, supper was served in the hall, and there he remained, hacking away, never as skilled as he needs to be. Never convinced he can successfully protect what he has vowed to protect, and on some days he can think of little else, preoccupied by everything he's lost and what he still stands to lose. He's more than just a sword, but just barely, and what good is a lame swordsman?

With the door of his chamber shut behind him, he huffs in frustration, shedding his tunic in a one handed motion that used to give him some difficulty. Of course, there are some things he's become skilled at without his right hand, he thinks with a smirk. Some rather pleasant things.

In that moment, he realizes that he is not alone in his chamber, and it's only his exhaustion and the ache in his muscles that have made him slow to recognize it. If Sansa was an assassin, he'd be dead by now.

But she's just a highborn woman. A woman his family has put through seven hells in this world. She has every right to press a knife to his throat in the night, but thus far she has only pressed her lips to his thundering pulse.

There is a stub of a candle, guttering away in a draft from the open window, shedding light on the pale of her shoulder, which peeks out from the heavy furs that cover her nakedness. He knows firsthand how smooth that shoulder will feel under his roaming hands.

It's almost as if she wants to prove she's a Stark with this obsession to have her windows wide open in the middle of winter. At least, he assumes she sleeps with her windows open, because she insists upon it when she comes to his chamber under the cover of darkness.

He strides over to the chair in the corner to pull off his boots. He would stop to close the window, because she's already asleep and this is his chamber and Casterly Rock was once his birthright, so if he thinks it's too damn cold to sleep with the window open, he can damn well close it. But the noise might wake her, and she looks so peaceful, so young with her hair fanned across the pillow and her lips slightly parted that he doesn't want to risk it.

She doesn't always sleep so peacefully.

Neither does he. He split her lip not so long ago, thrashing in his sleep, and although she knew he'd been sleeping and waking he would never lay a hand on her, the look of betrayal that crossed her face had twisted his stomach and made him kiss her, tasting the tang of iron, and vow all over again that he'd protect her from them all. Himself included. He's barred his door to her ever since.

And yet, here she sleeps. That will teach him to stay out later than the rest of the household.

He tries to noiselessly place his boots on the floor, but despite his best efforts, she wakes, her hair a waterfall of red as she props herself up in the bed and pulls the furs to her breast, covering herself with a genuine modesty which still baffles and intrigues him. Her coming here will result in him doing a great deal more than seeing an expanse of bare skin, so it seems a pointless gesture, and she cannot doubt that she is beautiful. She is unquestionably so, and he thinks he's told her so, whispered it against her skin.

Cersei never would have…

He lets the thought die, as he runs his hand through his hair.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

It's his room, so he need not apologize, but there is so much else he can be faulted for, that this apology costs him very little.

"I wasn't sleeping," she says, blinking her blue eyes at him in the shifting darkness.

Of course not. His little actress, playing a part she imagines might please him or whoever else, while keeping who she truly is locked somewhere deep inside.

He sighs, as he finds his feet and moves towards the bed. Sometimes he catches himself thinking of her as his own, when he knows she doesn't belong to him. Nor her husband either. Sansa belongs to no man. But he has become her creature.

He thinks he's caught enough snatches of Sansa's real self to know her, to almost understand her, but there's a chance—perhaps a good one—that's he's misjudged her entirely. That might be why she sometimes looks so very alone. He knows the feeling.

"I should call the guards and have them carry your pert arse out of here," he says, as he pulls back the furs, and she shifts to the side, still holding them to her chest, as she makes room for him.

"You wouldn't."

He raises his brows at her. "Wouldn't I? Tyrion gave you the house, my lady, but this bed, I believe, is still mine."

He doesn't bother with his breeches and smallclothes—she's more adept at removing them than he is—before sliding under the furs.

"The guards listen to me before they do you," she says, wasting no time as she slips between his arm and chest and rests her head in the crook of his shoulder. She fits there in a way he would have never anticipated. "And you sleep better with me here," she murmurs, as she rubs her nose against him like a kitten.

He thinks she's right. The circles under his eyes since he locked Sansa out have grown dark and deep. Already there's something like relief spreading through his limbs, as she tucks herself closer to him, her long legs tangling with his beneath the furs. As long as she's here, he knows where she is, knows she's as safe as you can be in this world of dragons and Wights.

He bends his arm to tangle his fingers in her thick hair and tilt her head back until he can press a kiss to her forehead. He kept her out, but now that she's found her way back here his heart is already pounding against his ribs.

"You're sleeping potion made flesh," he teases, and she rewards him with a little half smile.

She must know he lies, for her fingers have wandered and found proof of his ample alertness. He remembers feeling bone tired from his efforts in the training yard only a moment ago, but her warm flesh against him has made sleep impossible.

Her smile fades and her fingers still, as she pauses to gaze up at him. He catches her giving people this evaluative stare. There is a depth to her obscured by smiles and gowns and sweet words. She is always listening, learning. She observes the world around her and knows more than anyone would suspect.

_Queen Daenerys is sleeping with her Lord Commander_, she'd told him once.

If Sansa said it was true, she was probably right. She had seen something the rest of them had failed to notice.

He'd laughed and sang—rather poorly, because he was drunk, he was _always_ drunk when they were forced to come to King's Landing at Daenerys' bidding—a line or two from The Bear and the Maiden Fair in honor of the Lord Commander and their crowned queen, an odd pair. It was as bad as Lady Sansa with a greying, one-handed, _former_ Lord Commander.

She'd frowned at him. _Stop singing that_.

He'd asked her why, as he'd grabbed her and danced her around her chamber without accompaniment until the backs of her knees hit the bed. Sansa was fond enough of dancing that she didn't mind his stump. It was the golden hand she didn't like—too cold on her skin.

_Because it's not a funny song, and you smell of wine_.

That had only made him laugh harder. In some ways Sansa was still impossibly innocent. Of course, then he'd been forced to instruct her to be a good girl and cover her mouth so he could show her exactly what the song was about without waking the whole of the Red Keep.

"You're constantly in the yard," she says softly, and he can see from the way she eyes him that she knows something that perhaps he hasn't yet acknowledged himself. "What are you fighting?"

"A training dummy."

She shakes her head a little, as she sucks her lower lip in thought. "It isn't that. I know it isn't that."

"Two training dummies. I wore one out."

"Jaime," she says, drawing out his name.

"Never mind," he urges, his voice harsh, as he attempts to pull her in for a kiss that will end this line of questioning, but she dodges his efforts, her hands splayed against his chest for leverage. He can't bear to use the advantage of his strength against her, the way he would have with…

His eyes close for one long moment.

As they open again, he swallows drily, hoping he can outwait her tender concern. But, as he lies there, he can see that her distress only mounts, her lip trembling and her brows twitching together, as if she is fighting off tears.

She is the one to break the silence that hangs heavy between them, because he can think of nothing to say that might appease her.

"Do you imagine that we two will be fighting forever? Until the day we die?"

When she's thought he wasn't looking, he's seen this pervading sadness dim her features. He can barely stand the sight of it; her pooling tears are like salt in his wounds. He leans, stretching out of her grasp towards the candle, ready to blow it out, to shut out the sight of her clouded eyes, when he's stopped by her hand. It closes on his arm.

"Leave it."

He knows it for a command even though it is said in her usual gentle tones.

"So you can count the silver in my hair, my lady?" he says with a slow, false smile.

"No," she says, her fingers tightening. "So you can't pretend I'm someone else."

His gut clenches. His first instinct is to throw her off. To storm from the room, so he won't have to face this, but he stays, because his impetuousness has been dimmed with age and regret.

Running would do him no good: Sansa knows or at very least suspects his multitude of sins. She knows who haunts him. She knows exactly what he fights. No doubt she knows where it is he went after he unintentionally hurt her, who he saw, so as to remind himself who he is and why his only reason for being alongside Sansa should be to fulfill a vow made long ago.

Whatever unreasonable anger he felt at her accusation fades, when she says, "I'm Sansa Stark," so quietly that he wonders if she believes it herself.

He is sure of her, however. Winterfell is in ruins, but lovely Sansa Stark belongs there. He'll see her installed there one day, he's promised it to her and Lady Stoneheart. Then Sansa can do with him as she pleases.

"Of course you are," he says, tracing her jaw with his knuckles. He knows how lost Sansa was inside Alayne when he found her, how long she clung to that false identity Littlefinger had bestowed upon her, as if that was the only thing in the world that could protect her. "I'm half frozen," he says, nodding towards the open window, "thanks to your icy Stark blood."

"Please," she says, her voice breaking, as she stares back at him, untouched by his levity.

Sansa is kind and soft spoken and gentler than any woman he has ever touched, but there is a steely strength there beneath the yielding surface that won't allow her to beg.

Yet, here they are.

He struggles to sit up in the bed, and as his back finds the giant carved headboard, he drags her up until she straddles his lap and he can look her properly in the face. He holds her gaze for a moment, as his good hand finds the narrow of her waist, bare to his touch. Only then does he lean into her, and as his mouth settles close to the shell of her ear, his voice is thick: "Sansa, I don't pretend."

Littlefinger did enough pretending with her, and despite what she might fear, he wouldn't want to imagine that Sansa is his twin. Cersei is not far, she never is, but he doesn't want her here entwined in his arms. Not anymore. He is haunted by the past, but his future can never be with his sister. Whatever desire he still had for her went up in flames with Tommen.

"I don't," he says again on a growl, and although he can see the sadness lingering in her eyes, she slips her hand into his hair, rubbing at the nape of his neck—almost as if to reassure him.

"You know," she begins, but he manages to distract her train of thought, his hand settling into the small of her back and bringing her harder against him.

"Yes?" he asks, coolly cocking a brow at her.

Her hand fists his hair. "Sometimes I forget who _you_ are too," she says, as she rocks against him temptingly. "I forget I still have my head in the lion's mouth."

He nips at her throat, his teeth scraping her skin, as if on cue, and she gasps, arching against him.

Not much of a lion anymore, Jaime can't help but think. He poses as much danger to her as the tabby that graces the bed in her chamber, but he can see where Sansa would want to forget it's the Kingslayer's bed she warms. Neither of their paths would have made their fathers proud.

He's seized by an almost primal urge to roll her over, to press her into the bed and kiss her, until they've both forgotten the rest of the world, so it won't matter that he's a Lannister and she's a Stark. Her free hand is busy at his laces, working furiously to free him, and he grimaces, thinking how easy it would be to do just that.

But, he can't afford to forget: he's made a promise.

That doesn't mean he need give this up, however, he thinks, as he crushes his lips against hers.

"Sansa," he urges against her mouth. He says it once, twice, her name a fresh promise.

"Yes," she says, as her hand closes around him.

"We'll let the candle burn tonight. To remind us both."


	3. A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

**Title**: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing  
><strong>Author<strong>: just_a_dram  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: ASOIAF  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Jaime/Sansa  
><strong>Rating<strong>: T for language and adult concepts  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 1773  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Jaime visits Cersei in the dungeons of Casterly Rock. Set post series.  
><strong>Author's Note<strong>: mrstater said, You should write jealous!Cersei, Jaime/Sansa. I think she was joking. This is part 3 of the A Wolf Among Lions series.

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

"Brother," his fair haired twin sneers, as she fingers her still too short hair, trying no doubt to smooth it back, to reclaim some impression of her former glory.

It is a useless gesture. If she is freed, she will need a great deal of false hair to make her feel fit to be seen. But, she will never be freed.

"Sweet sister," he says, leaning against the sweating stone wall that boxes her in, nodding at her through the bars that hold her fast.

"How long has it been?" she asks.

Not long enough, he wants to tell her, but he is drawn down into this dungeon to face her as one might be drawn towards the flames, knowing it will burn, but transfixed nonetheless. For every hundred people that ran from Daenerys' dragons, one would walk right towards them. He saw the phenomenon with his own eyes, and he feels a strange kinship with those who marched into the flames.

"I don't keep count, as I've only five fingers," he says instead, holding them up and wiggling them for her benefit.

It's a lie. He knows the last time he saw her face. He always remembers, whether he wants to or not.

"She must keep you busy."

The Cersei of old would never be so careless: she must be tired to betray her jealousy with so little attempt as concealment. Although what she is jealous of Jaime can't be exactly sure.

It might be that she despises that he tastes freedom, while she molders below. Their crimes should have been enough to condemn them both to death, but he has been forgiven by their brother, the Hand of the Queen, and she shall never see the light of day again. Even Jaime can see how that isn't fair, but life is rarely fair.

Then again, she might hate that another woman presides over Casterly Rock, given by Tyrion after the war to his wife, whose own seat of power still lies in ruins. If any woman was to reign over Casterly Rock, surely Cersei believes it should be her, not the Stark girl. That same old jealousy of the power others hold curls her bony hands into fists at her side and rots her from the inside out.

"She does indeed," he says, pushing off the wall and strolling towards the bars of her cell. "Very busy."

Or she might regret that another woman holds sway over him. She might even suspect that Sansa's hold on him has very little to do with honor and duty anymore.

That is what he's come to tell her, after all. There's a streak of cruelty in him yet, which has nourished with anticipation this revelation. If it had been up to him, Cersei would have died the day she handed Tommen over to the Dragon Queen in exchange for her own life—her intense self-preservation conquering even her love for her children, their children. He can never forgive her that. If it had been Joffrey, it might have been different, and that somehow only makes the betrayal worse.

"Self-important little bitch," Cersei says, as she straightens up to her full height, but the effect is not so impressive as before now that she is dressed in a drab linen shift that only comes to her knees.

"I'd watch your tongue," he reminds her coolly.

He's told her before that she lives at Sansa's pleasure. Tyrion saved him with a word to the new queen, but their brother has no love for Cersei. She would be dead if Sansa had not traded Daenerys her loyalty, the North's loyalty for Cersei, alive and unscorched. Jaime had assumed the auburn haired beauty wanted her, so that she could execute justice herself in Stark tradition, but he had been wrong.

"You'd report on me, Jaime?" she asks, tilting her head in a sad imitation of flirtation.

Without question, he wants to vow.

Sansa feeds Tommen's kittens cream. They curl on her bed, sleeping amongst the thick furs. Sansa would never hand over any child of hers. Not for anything.

He knows where his allegiance lies. And yet, it's hard to speak against his sister out loud. Sansa knows this, and Cersei's name is never spoken between them. That he sometimes visits her is surely not below Sansa's notice, but she has never forced him to disavow his twin, when she has every right to do so.

"Have the reports reached your ears?" he asks.

"I'm afraid not: my jailers are unfortunately tightlipped, and I have very little with which to bribe them."

He raises his brows, thinking Cersei is more resourceful than she is willing to admit if he knows her at all.

He wraps his good hand around a bar—it's even wetter than the wall. The feel of the cool slickness against his hand distracts him from his news for a heartbeat.

"Casterly Rock will not be without an heir for long."

He doesn't know what he was expecting by way of response, but Cersei's smile turns this anticipated moment into something unnerving. As she tips her head to laugh ever harder, he has to force himself to stand firm. She is the captive, he must remind himself. He has the upper hand.

"Have you lost your wits?" he finally demands loudly enough to be heard over her peals of laughter.

Her mirth thankfully dries up, having spent enough time bound and drugged by the Casterly Rock maester, when she first arrived and he deemed her a risk to herself, to fear the stamp of insanity, but her eyes still shimmer gleefully.

"You're such a fool," she whispers almost sweetly, as she leans into the bars. "A great, big fool. Jaime Lannister, ever ready to play the stud horse. Would she like to know the truth about us, do you think?"

"Sansa's a Stark, not a simpleton." Even the smallfolk spoke of the Lannister sin and spawn.

Biting her thinned lower lip, she sighs, "Faced with a monster for a husband, I suppose she chose the less damaged of the two Lannisters."

Jaime isn't so sure. Sometimes he wakes up, stares up at the ceiling, and thinks he is the most damaged person in the Seven Kingdoms.

Then again, at least he has his nose.

"She's less fool than you. Still, there are much safer objects for your lust, you know."

"Lady Sansa _is_ undoubtedly one of the most dangerous women in Westeros," he says with a cocksure grin, willfully misunderstanding her.

"Dangerous? Hardly," she scoffs. "A real woman would have dispatched me, and here I stand."

He suspects Sansa's decision to keep his twin alive here in the bowels of Casterly Rock, while she rules overhead, is not intended to be a mercy. There is a steeliness to Sansa one wouldn't have expected of the girl once beaten by Joffrey's Kingsguard. Although, Cersei hardly has cause to complain, when she played a part in creating the woman Sansa has become—a wolf in sheep's clothing.

"I don't know. She's managed what you couldn't, sister."

Cersei steps back from the bars and finds her bench without turning her head, composed enough as she sits to be gracing a throne.

"To bend the knee to a slut that Robert would have been wise to dispatch? Why, yes, I suppose she does have that dubious distinction, doesn't she?"

"No. To survive the game. You can hardly call this elegant life," he says, nodding at her bleak surroundings, "surviving." The dogs are better housed.

"She plays the game well enough. I will give the girl that," Cersei says with a flick of the wrist that seems to tidily negate Sansa's accomplishments. "Littlefinger worked rather hard to make a good little pupil of her. I wager he taught her well. Although, I suppose you have nightly proof of that. He got there first, didn't he?" she says with a delicate frown.

Jaime's hand grips the bar so tightly his knuckles turn white. He would like nothing more than to lash out at her, but he draws upon the caution he has learned late in life to bite his tongue. He will not give her the pleasure, although the pleasure would be his as well.

"It's the Imp, not the girl, that you must be careful of, or have you forgotten that he doesn't like to be crossed? Doesn't like to be embarrassed?" Cersei asks, looking exasperated with his dullness.

Of Tywin Lannister's children, Jaime might not have been the greatest mind, but he is not _that_ thick.

Tyrion would have seen to it that his marriage was dissolved—as a kindness to his unwilling bride—upon his return to Westeros, but the marriage provides Sansa with the sort of protection the Kingslayer and his stump cannot. Tyrion makes no claims on Sansa and lives rather monastically if reports from King's Landing are to be believed. He has never explicitly discussed with them Jaime's continued presence here at Casterly Rock and at Sansa's side, but Cersei is right: Tyrion is no fool, and his forbearance might very well be tested by this pregnancy.

For a moment Jaime pictures himself with a crossbow through his guts.

Cersei, perhaps sensing his discomfort, pushes on, "The Imp isn't as dim as my dear departed husband was. He's liable to realize that he's never stuck his cock in her, and you'll lose more than a hand."

Sansa claims nothing of the sort will happen, but there is a chance that she is only feigning certainty. Lady Sansa has become quite nearly unreadable, her real thoughts and emotions held in silent reserve behind a carefully crafted mask. Sometimes he fears that she is acting even with him. When she returned from a journey to King's Landing one night and slipped into his bed for the first time, warm and distractingly soft atop him, she whispered throatily in his ear that she hated them all, and he wondered not for the first time how he could fail to be counted amongst those she waits patiently to destroy.

And yet, he trusts her with his life.

A fool he might be, he thinks, as he turns his back on his sister. But, death at Sansa's hands is precisely what he deserves, should that be what she intends.

He can hear Cersei scramble to her feet, as he strides down the hall, her composure failing her as she loses her intangible grip on him.

"Jaime," she calls after him. "I won't be ignored!"

That is precisely what he does, however, as her cries can not slow his steps.

THE END


	4. Shewolves and Lionesses

**Title**: She-wolves and Lionesses  
><strong>Author<strong>: just_a_dram  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: ASOIAF  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Jaime/Sansa  
><strong>Rating<strong>: T  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 3650  
><strong>Summary<strong>: The snow hasn't melted. Quite the opposite: it continues to fall. He had thought her more controlled than this. He had never imagined she would try something so rash.  
><strong>Author's Note<strong>: The fourth part of the A Wolf Among Lions series.

She-wolves and Lionesses

Tyrion arrived in the late morning. The visit was a planned one: it was necessary the Lord of Casterly Rock sometimes show his face there to keep up the appearance of normality or some semblance of it. Jaime generally was glad to see his brother here rather than in King's Landing, where he could find no pleasure in anything. Even if Tyrion's presence here meant an end to Sansa's nighttime visitations. She did not warm his bed on the nights Tyrion slept within these walls.

It was the least they could do, Jaime supposed. Although, he found himself brooding now on Sansa's presence in his chamber the previous night and the inexplicable things she had said to him as he moved inside her.

_Everything will be all right_. She said it more than once. A chant amidst their coupling that now seemed ominous.

What was Sansa afraid of? He might have asked at the time, but he had been consumed by need and even if he had, he doubted she would have told.

There was the child, of course. Tyrion still knew nothing of the child. But they need not tell him quite yet. Only a few moons had passed. They had time yet to discuss how best to handle it. It could still be their shared secret.

He promises himself that he will broach the subject with Sansa as soon as Tyrion has left them alone. That he will quell her fears the way she has tried to quell his. He cannot broach the subject now, because she is with Tyrion. She has been for some time, and as the hours slip by, he becomes increasingly worried that their discussion will have come too late.

Jaime's troubled thoughts are disturbed by his brother's entrance. Whatever Sansa and Tyrion have been closeted away talking about since the cold winter sun was still high in the sky over Casterly Rock, they are finished for now.

That entire time his presence was not required. It only serves to remind him that this house is not his. Sansa is not his. And he is not needed.

"Pour me a cup," Tyrion says, as he climbs onto the chair across the table from him and gestures towards the bottle at his left.

Jaime fills the cup, which he wasn't using anyway, preferring to pull straight from the bottle, almost to the rim with dark red wine and pushes it across the table.

Tyrion nods, knocks back a swallow, and grimaces. It isn't the best the cellars of this house have to offer, but as winter stretches on, less desirable vintages must be quaffed alongside the fine. For Jaime's purposes—drowning assailing doubts—it makes no difference.

Tyrion clears his throat before beginning, "I understand congratulations are in order."

Jaime stretches out in the chair, his leg extending under the table like a lounging lion as the contents of the bottle slosh in his hand.

"Congratulations for what?" he asks lazily, although his muscles are tensing, and everything within him is urging him to find Sansa, to make sure she is safe.

"That I am to be an uncle, of course." Tyrion smirks. "And you a father."

Jaime stares back at his brother's mismatched eyes. He sees no hint of malice there, but he can't be sure. Sansa must have told him, for although Jaime can see the swell of her middle beneath her gown, he believes it is only because he knows it is there, because he has pressed his hand, the length of it spanning her, over that space, when she wore nothing. Sansa should have let him be there if she was going to tell Tyrion about the child. His brother is short, and so can his temper be. She should have at least told him what she had planned.

But, even with his child growing inside her, she still keeps things to herself. Perhaps more so than ever. Protecting not only herself, but the unborn babe as well. He would protect them both if she would only let him. He will not fail.

"There's no need to play at being simple," Tyrion insists, as he lifts his cup. He looks over its rim, raising his brows at Jaime. "Though they say the husband is surely the last to know, you mustn't congratulate yourself on being particularly cunning. It isn't as if I wasn't fully aware of what the pair of you were up to here."

"Very well," Jaime says, gritting his teeth as he replaces the bottle on the table with a heavy thud. "We both know what's gone on here in your absence, but I won't have you blaming Sansa for it."

"Blame her? No. These things take two. Do they not?" his brother asks, looking more diverted than he has any right to be, as a cuckold husband. As a heavy frown creases his brow, however, it makes him look abruptly less amused. "Although, I must admit, I'm surprised she was not more careful. Sansa is usually so careful in all things, so measured. I wonder what she was playing at."

She is careful. Jaime could not help but wonder the same thing, when she came to him, and whispered in his ear the truth with a shy eagerness that made him recall her youth more so than ever. Moon tea is not difficult to obtain. Not with a fat maester on hand, eager to please the mistress and make himself useful. He could only assume the maester had prepared moon tea for her previously or there would already be one child at least in the time they had been together.

"She wanted a child," he says, swallowing hard.

It became amply clear to him with time that it had not been a mistake, that she had sought this outcome. That in itself is not wholly surprising: she is tender and nurturing, and he can see where she would want a child to love and lavish attention on, where before she was ever made to come to King's Landing Sansa Stark was meant to be a good wife and mother. A Lannister child, however? That Jaime still doesn't understand, as much as he tries and fails to understand why she should want him, a member of that family and as guilty as all the rest.

"I suppose she has forgiven you then," Tyrion says.

Jaime shrugs and picks up the bottle to swig from it once more. If he was a superstitious man, he would fear that his brother could read his thoughts.

"She seems very fond of you, though she would not wish me to know it."

"One's always wary of one's husband finding these things out," Jaime responds flatly.

"You would know better than I about such matters. I've only ever been the husband," Tyrion says, as he rubs the stub on his face. "Well, no doubt she will make a good mother."

Tyrion makes no mention of Cersei, but Jaime senses it floating between them unsaid. He cannot blame his brother: he has made the comparison himself.

"You must own that it's an awkward position you have put me in, Jaime, but luckily enough I am quite accustomed to dealing with awkward positions."

Jaime shifts in his seat, his eyes darting to the door. Despite his brother's assurance, until he sees her, he won't be able to rest easy that she is safe, that she has been untouched.

Jaime thinks of Daenerys and her barely concealed dislike for him. If the Dragon Queen was to discover that Sansa carried the Kingslayer's child, she might find herself suddenly less forgiving about both of them. Yes, it is an awkward and dangerous position for them all. Perhaps they'd all be safer across the seas, where no one would know who they were, an anonymous family of three—a fantasy he's indulged not for the first time.

And not just for this family.

He doesn't want to make the same mistakes again, doomed to repeat himself and drag innocents down with him in his weakness.

"You mean to help Sansa?" Jaime asks quietly, as his good hand fists.

"Yes, of course, Jaime," Tyrion says not quite gently but with a calm confidence Jaime would like to take comfort in. "I've promised she shall be safe and her child too. I bear her no ill will. I certainly didn't threaten her just now or whatever it is you're imagining."

"Enlighten me then. What has passed between you and Sansa," Jaime says.

"We've merely had a talk, my lady wife and I. It might be of some interest to you. She'll tell you, I'm sure. Go ahead, call for her," he says, gesturing towards the door.

Jaime tilts his head and narrows his eyes slightly.

"I don't summon the Lady Sansa."

She is the lady of this house and he is not her lord husband. To even presume that he has the right to command her to do anything is laughable.

Tyrion shrugs and calls over his shoulder for a servant to fetch his wife. Turning back to Jaime, he whispers hoarsely, "May I have the honor of informing our sweet sister of your blessed event?"

It is through gritted teeth that Jaime growls his answer: "Enough."

It might amuse Tyrion, but he will not have Cersei's name on their lips when Sansa appears.

Tyrion chuckles. "I should have known you'd tell her yourself. You two always were as thick as thieves."

His brother pauses, touches his chin, and looks as if he is about to say something else, but Sansa must not have been far. Before he can speak, she sweeps into the room, her slippered feet silent on the stone, and comes to stand alongside Tyrion's chair, a pleasant, unreadable look upon her fair face, which has seemed all the more lovely since conceiving.

"There you are," Tyrion says, looking up at Sansa. "Have a seat, my lady."

Sansa dutifully takes a seat next to his brother, and he can't help but notice that her blue eyes have not met his since entering the room.

What have they schemed together, what plot have they hatched? A feeling of doom begins to settle low in his stomach.

"I thought we might share with my brother the arrangement we have come to, my lady."

"As you like."

Tyrion turns his attention to Jaime.

"I believe it is time for Lady Sansa to reclaim Winterfell as her own."

"In the middle of winter?"

And with no signs of lifting. Jaime shakes his head, thinking this is insanity.

"You would have me stay here forever?" Sansa asks with an edge to her voice he has become unused to hearing directed at him, as her eyes find his for the first time.

Jaime knows that Winterfell—her home—is what she wants, desperately. Much more than she wanted a child, he thinks. He would rather never disappoint her, and yet, the timing is not good. It is in truth of fact very, very bad.

"No. Of course not. But you should wait…if not you might starve or freeze."

"That won't be a real concern," Tyrion begins, but Jaime cuts him off.

"Of course it is," he snaps.

If he turned his back, he would see glistening icicles hanging from the window behind him. Icicles that never melt, never drip.

Sansa and Tyrion wait silently, both their gazes upon him, making him feel like a petulant child, whose tantrum must simply be endured.

Finally, Tyrion begins again, "I'll see to it that Lady Sansa is provided with ample supplies to feed and clothe and house her household, brother. The Hand of the Queen has more than enough on hand to provide for his lady wife's journey and establishment there."

"This winter might be a long one," Jaime protests, thinking of Sansa cold and hungry in the broken shell of Winterfell, thinking of their child without enough food to fill its belly.

There are things he can do with one hand, but growing crops in frozen soil is not one of them. That he could not save them from.

"This winter might last forever," Sansa bites back, her fingertips gripping the edge of the table. "I would leave now if my lord husband approves."

Jaime cannot even give thought to an endless winter. In his mind the winter would come to an end, just as every winter before it had done, and he would lead her through melting snow to her home, just as she desired. He would help her rebuild. He would make himself useful for once.

The snow won't have melted. Quite the opposite: it continues to fall. He had thought her more controlled than this. He had never imagined she would try something so rash.

"I do approve," Tyrion says with a grin. "I think it's a very suitable plan. The North needs Sansa. What is it they say?"

"There must always be a Stark in Winterfell," Jaime supplies, and he would say it with bitter irony, except Sansa still holds his gaze, and he sees something in her eyes that makes his heart beat quick.

It _is_ what he has promised her, and if he denies her it…

"Daenerys will be glad to have Lady Sansa represent her, a strong beacon of authority and submission to the Iron Throne in the North, and the North will be glad to have their Lady back, I have no doubt. They will be pleased to see what a capable woman she has become."

Sansa gives Tyrion a cool smile, which Jaime suspects has nothing to do with fidelity to House Targaryen. She is caught up in thoughts of her seat, of the North, of home. The very visions he has spun for her when they are alone together in the dark.

Not now, Jaime wants to beg if it will make a difference.

"Gods, Sansa," Jaime says, leaning forward to address her as if they are the only two in the room. "In your condition."

Does his brother mean to kill her and the child both?

"No," Tyrion says, waving a hand dismissively before reaching for his cup once more. "There will be no question of that. The child must be brought safely into this world here at Casterly Rock, in his _father's_ house. I would be too far away to attend the birth if Lady Sansa had already departed. That would never do."

Sansa at least does not look surprised by this pronouncement, and he can see with certainty now that Tyrion means to continue this alliance. To protect Sansa and the child. To protect Jaime as well. Sansa had said it would be so, and while her nerves may have failed her last night, it has turned out that she was right: she is always right. She has an uncanny way of reading people that has nothing to do with luck or inborn talent and everything to do with careful practice.

Jaime feels as if he should say thank you for this magnanimity, but the words stick in his throat and he stares dumbly at the table instead. Tyrion could stop this mad plan of hers—for he is certain this plan to leave with a suckling babe for a castle in ruins is Sansa's and Sansa's alone—if he wanted to do so. He has that power as the Hand, as her lord husband in name at least.

"When the babe is strong enough, Lady Sansa may depart with whatever she might require to reestablish Winterfell's former glory."

"It will be difficult to rebuild," Sansa admits.

"In drifts of snow twenty-five feet tall? I'm astonished you'd think so," Jaime says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I meant, Jaime, that you might go as well if your presence would be helpful to my lady wife, but if you think the prospect too daunting," Tyrion says, letting his statement go unfinished.

Jaime can see that Sansa's breathing has become shallow, her chest barely rising and falling, as she watches him and waits for his response.

"Of course I'll go with the Lady Sansa," Jaime says, staring back at her. "She must know I will."

If the snow drifts were one hundred feet deep, he would ride at her side into it to freeze rather than see her depart without him.

"You will be much needed, no doubt," Tyrion says, draining the last of his cup and replacing it on the table. "Now, if you'll excuse me. My legs are tired from my ride this morning."

"A warm bath, perhaps," Sansa suggests gently, as Tyrion climbs down from his chair and waves back at them as he waddles from the room.

"Sansa," he says once more now that they are alone. He thought sure he knew enough of her to trust that any child of hers would be safe. He can't fail the innocent again. Not after watching once… "Sansa, I won't allow you to endanger the child."

He prepares to see a bright flash of anger at his insistence, at his attempt to control her even if it is in the name of their child.

He waits in vain for anger that never materializes.

Sansa stands and moves around the table, coming to sit so close to him atop the table that her ankle brushes his leg as it swings unconsciously in an almost childish gesture that is unintentionally seductive.

"I would _never_, Jaime," she says, placing her delicate hand over his. "Never," she says with a fierceness that makes him grip her hand back and squeeze so tightly that she winces. "No child of mine will ever burn."

Or freeze, he wonders?

He exhales sharply, but cannot bring himself to speak yet. For a moment he can almost smell the sickening scent of burning flesh, forever wedded in his mind to loss and betrayal and sickening self interest.

"I've done this for the child," she insists, pressing her free hand to her middle. "Stark blood will flow in its veins; the winter will only make him stronger."

"Him?"

Sansa's mask of confidence slips, he sees for a moment the young girl, and she looks uncertain as she stretches out her hand to trace his cheek.

"Would that please you?" she asks in a small voice.

"It would please me for you both to be safe," he says with a heavy sigh.

She responds without pause, assured once more in her choice, "It is where we shall all be safest, Jaime."

He opens his mouth to object, but she bends down and presses a soft kiss to his lips, silencing him for the moment.

"In the North. Far from here. This is no place for us, not so close to King's Landing," she murmurs against his lips.

"Dragons have wings," he reminds her.

It is a harsh truth.

There is no place in these Seven Kingdoms where they truly might be safe so long as they are Jaime Lannister and Sansa Stark. No place that the leathery wings of dragons might not blot out the sun. That their breath might not char the flesh.

She sits back, and he watches in confusion as a smile just barely causes the corners of her lips to quirk.

"What have you done?" he asks low enough that no one in passing might hear.

"I've managed everything," she says, her hand pressed against her middle once more.

Somehow he doesn't doubt that.

"How?"

She sucks her lower lip between her teeth, and her ankle trails over his calf with deliberate motion this time.

"Through quiet observation," she says with no small amount of pride. "It is true, what I said about the Dragon Queen and the Lord Commander."

Reaching down, he catches her leg, so that he might focus on what she says.

"And how would you know that?"

"Because I am not the only one who will deliver a child, and I threatened to say what it is I know and put the succession in question. To make public their crimes."

"You told Tyrion this?"

She inclines her head in assent.

"His response was enough to prove that my assumptions about them are correct."

They have been careful. Jaime has heard no whispers about the queen, except those fed to him by Sansa herself. For all he knows, Sansa and the Hand are the only two who have found their secret out. Jaime knows how well a secret can be kept even in King's Landing if one takes the trouble to be discrete. It's a painful game.

"Take care, Sansa. I don't imagine Daenerys Stormborn will appreciate being threatened."

"I very much doubt she will ever hear one word of my threats. My lord husband will not wish to see Westeros torn apart once more. He will smooth the way for us, so my threats never need be made."

He cannot help but chuckle, as Sansa's plot unravels before him. Tyrion thirsts for power in a way he never has. Even if familial affection was not enough to encourage him to protect Sansa and Jaime—and he suspects it would be—his desire to remain the Hand will surely do the trick. He would no doubt go to great lengths to see to it that they remain safe and silent in the North. He will say whatever needs to be said, make whatever assurances, and make long, arduous trips north to visit his lady wife all to keep the peace.

She has created a contingency should Tyrion ever doubt his desire to assist them.

"He would stand to lose what power he has if he didn't," Jaime says in awe of Sansa's adept maneuverings.

Yes, she has placed his brother in an awkward position, and secured her freedom and her child's safety.

Lionesses are given all the credit, but a she-wolf might prove a better mother yet.

THE END


	5. From Pride to Pack

**Title**: From Pride to Pack  
><strong>Author<strong>: just_a_dram  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: ASOIAF  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Jaime/Sansa  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M for violence  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 3126  
><strong>Summary<strong>: He realizes it one night as he watches her mend his tunic. Cersei can't come with them.  
><strong>Author's Note<strong>: The fifth part of the A Wolf Among Lions series.

From Pride to Pack

He's in the training yard, trying to expend every last bit of his energy, so he might have some chance—probably—futile at sleep tonight, when he glances up, drawn by a figure appearing above him in one of the windows overlooking the yard. There Sansa stands, her pale face framed by the window, her thick hair tumbling over one shoulder in a loose braid. Silently watching him.

Of course she's noticed. Noticed how as her time draws near he spends less and less time inside the walls of Casterly Rock. How often he is ready to fall asleep at meals, his eyes heavy with exhaustion from over exertion. How he sleeps—or pretends to—with his back turned to her even when she awkwardly tries to fit herself to him, her fingers pressing into his hip and her breath warm against his shoulder. Not even his name on her lips can make him face her.

He's not just fighting anymore. He's running away like a coward. But he doesn't know how to face Sansa when he can't decide how to face what lies ahead.

High above him Sansa touches the tips of her fingers to the wavy glass. He sheathes his sword, legs astride with each labored exhalation making puffs of white in the cold air, and stares back up at her. Through the thick glass and at this distance it is difficult to tell, but he feels as if there is a sadness about her eyes that perhaps others would not notice but which he has come to know even when she is guarding herself. The glass must be cold to the touch, chilling her, and he's seized by an urge to shout to her to return to the hearth, but his jaw clenches tight instead.

Sansa will be delivered of their child and the time will come for them to leave. To set off for the North and Winterfell, never to return if Sansa has her way. They will take cartloads of tools, food, and mountains of furs, and the servants, guardsmen, and builders necessary to rebuild her home. They will pack everything up into trunks and inch across the frozen ground, leaving Casterly Rock behind.

There is one thing they cannot take.

Cersei.

It occurred to him one night while he watched Sansa ply her needle by candlelight, mending a hole in his tunic.

_Some girl could do that_, he informed her, as he carelessly propped his feet up on the table beside her and leaned his head against the back of his chair.

_I'm a girl_.

_A serving girl_, he corrected.

She dimpled her bottom lip, biting it, as she smiled at him over her mending.

_I could be that too_.

He laughed, his shoulders shaking, as a grin split his face. Not so much at the notion—he well knew that high born Lady Sansa could with practice disappear into whatever role she needed to play—but at the playfulness of the offer. The teasing, the lightness, the unabashed seduction made sweet by her showing him the smallness of her stitches before pulling him to bed. Sweet in a way he had known women could be in theory but not in his experience.

Things were almost easy between them. Far away from here, it might be even easier. There would be no frequent calls to King's Landing, no Dragon Queen, no lord husband. He might have the pleasure of watching Sansa rule the North with all the gentle authority he had seen displayed here at Casterly Rock. He could serve her, serve someone who would rule with strength, resolve, and kindness. Far away, he might even show his son how to hold a sword or balance his daughter on his knee if Sansa thought it not amiss. He could see why she wanted to leave. More than just the shimmering promise of honor made the prospect seem a good one to him too.

It was quite nearly enough to make him forget his twin. It was almost as if Sansa had forgotten as well.

Until he remembered that night, as she repaired his tunic and straddled his thighs and had him feel where the babe's back pressed against her belly. Everything since then had been wrong, had been fractured, had been a constant battle within him.

No, Cersei couldn't come.

What were they to do? Drag her along in the baggage cart, so that they might stash her below Winterfell amongst the broken kings of the North? Was their child to grow up alongside the woman in chains who screamed out for revenge and would spew poison at every chance?

She cannot be with them. She is the past and she has no place in his future. No place in Sansa's.

She cannot go, and yet, he will not leave her to the dragons.

There was a time when his rage burned so fiercely that he would have gladly seen the red flames lick at her skirts, but as he looks up at Sansa from the training yard, he knows that should not be the way of things. It wouldn't be considered justice in the North, where they shall make their future. The Starks wield the sword themselves. To leave it to others is the coward's escape.

He spares one small nod for the sole remaining representative of House Stark, a wolf without a pack, and leaves the yard, knowing with a grave finality what he must do.

It is time to stop the war.

…

It's been months since he descended these mildewed steps, strode these dank halls, and in that time, somehow everything has become more claustrophobic than before. It is as if the walls narrow about him as he draws closer, the iron ring of keys—charmed from a lazy guard—swinging from his hand with each step.

His twin, who with each passing year has looked less his double, scrambles from her bench as he turns the corner, no regal grace to her hurried movements.

"Jaime," she says breathlessly, as she wraps her hands around the bars.

"Move back," he instructs her, as he fumbles with the keys to find the one that will turn the lock.

"What are you doing?" she asks, although she follows his directions and steps back until her back presses against the wall.

That alone feels wrong. Cersei always gave directions; he followed. Whatever she was is no more. Whatever he was must be at an end as well.

The lock turns with a click, and the door opens with a creak. He closes it behind him, leaving the key in the lock, as he stands within the cell that has been her home for some time now.

If she is surprised that he has unlocked her door and come inside, she doesn't say so. The initial frenzy she displayed as he appeared before her melts away, no doubt intended to be forgotten, and the only sign that she is not fully at ease are her hands, which dance over her thin tunic. Even that disappears as she lifts her chin.

"You've been away. At King's Landing?"

"I've been right here."

She frowns, as if he's given the wrong answer. It is a face he knows well. Even locked up in this cell, Jaime continues to disappoint his sister.

"Then you have no news of the Dragon Queen?"

"No."

His hand flexes at his side. He is tired from his time in the training yard today. His muscles tight. But how much strength will it take? She is a lion, but a caged one.

"Jaime," she says, taking a step towards him, "you must get word to Daenerys for me."

"Must I?"

"Yes," she says, as she inches yet closer. "I want to tell her something."

She has all the time in the world down here to plot and scheme, and she seems prepared for this moment. Ready to make the most of it, strangely confident in her sackcloth as she approaches him. She means to be persuasive, to use whatever appeal she might still have. That she hasn't called him stupid already is proof enough of that.

"I'm afraid she won't want to hear from you. You and I aren't her favorite subjects."

"She will gladly listen when she hears what it is I have to say," Cersei says with firm certainty, as she finally stands toe to toe with him, her hand reaching up to stroke his arm.

The arm that ends in a stump, he notices, although her eyes—as always—do not acknowledge his golden hand. If she means to convince him of something, she might at least pretend his false hand doesn't disgust her. But it does. Everything that makes them different repulses her. The things she loved about him were just the facets of herself that she saw reflected back. A living mirror.

"Something about Sansa, perhaps?" he asks, as he slips his unwanted golden hand over her waist, a mimicry of how they once touched, both whole and beautiful.

"And threaten your lovely little family?" she murmurs with a little shake of her head. "How could I?"

He huffs, lowering his head to press against hers, forehead to forehead. They used to lie in bed as children, heads pressed together like so, a tangle of blond curls and tanned limbs, sharing the air between them.

"You must get me out of here," she whispers, angling her head so that he might kiss her if he so desired. "You must get word to the Dragon Queen."

He forces his eyes shut, for the desperation he sees in hers so reminds him of what he sees every morning when he wakes and stares into the mirror that it is almost enough to seduce him into believing that there is something yet between them. Some shared bond.

But that is an illusion. A dark one.

"What would you do if you were free?" he asks with a dry swallow, distracting her with words, as his good hand stiffly gropes at his side for what he knows hangs there.

"Leave for the East, Jaime. We could go together. It's what you've always wanted, isn't it? No one would know us there," she urges as her hand slides over his arm and wraps around the back of his neck, holding him to her, her nose nudging his.

Their noses are no longer the same. His was broken and bears a bump. Hers is as straight as the day they came into this world.

His fist closes over the object as his eyes open once more.

"To leave with Tommen and Mrycella. It's too late for them if you remember."

Both victims of Cersei's game in which he was a willing player for much too long. He was a man grown. A knight. The Lord Commander. And he did nothing. Saved no one. He's as guilty as she. That much they have in common and will until they last draw breath.

She leans her weight into him as if she can barely stand and her brows draw together, making him wonder if this is the true pain of loss or something rehearsed for his benefit. She loved them. Didn't she? Once.

Her dry, cracked lips brush his chin, as she strains, "I know, Jaime. _I know_."

I never even held them, he wants to say, but his tongue feels thick in his mouth.

"Let's leave together, Jaime. Leave tonight. We're the same, you and me. She isn't you. Why else would you come here, Jaime? Why would you take the key to my cell?"

"I'm conducting a survey of the castle," he responds flatly.

Her nails are ragged and unkempt and they painfully bite into the flesh at the nape of his neck. It's a sharp reminder: she is caged, but she is still fierce. Nothing was ever gentle with her—neither word nor touch. He was not gentle either. Didn't imagine he could be. Biting, scratching, tugging—that is the way of a lion.

Things could have different for his sister. If she'd had a husband that loved her, if too much power hadn't fallen in her lap, if their father had been a different man. Jaime has to believe that. If not, there's no hope for him either.

"Sansa Stark hates us, Jaime. She hates us both. We're both her prisoners," she hisses. "Don't be a fool, while she bides her time. She's a Stark."

She is. She might not look it—she favors her mother—but she is without question a Stark. She's brave. Much braver than anyone would have ever given her credit for when she was just a pretty little bird at court, buffeted about by the forces around her. The steel, that strength that lies beneath the surface is what makes her a Stark as much as the blood that flows in her veins, and although Littlefinger tried to twist her into a creature of his own fashioning, that stubborn steel refused to break. She only had to be reminded of who she was.

"There's no point in hating the Starks," he says calmly, as if he might convince her of this fact, so that she might end her hopeless raging.

It does no good. He knew it wouldn't, but he had to try, so she might have a moment of peace, free of hate and venom before the end.

The heft of it feels heavy in his hand.

Her voice rises, as she is contradicted, "The Starks are our enemies. She will _never_ forget what we did to them."

Cersei's eyes go wide, as the blade of the dagger slips between her ribs. He didn't need to look to know where to place it. He has lost his right hand, but the knowledge of killing will never leave him. There's the same resistance, the familiar feel of the blade cutting through skin, muscle, and tissue. The same flood of warmth as blood spills out over the handle of the dagger, coating his hand in a slick stream.

"I can't ever forget either, sweet sister," he says, as he presses a kiss to her brow.

He allows her to slump into his shoulder, her hands clinging at his tunic as she feebly attempts to remain upright. He won't let her fall, he will hold her until it's over, he thinks, as his hand, free from the dagger lodged in her side, finds her once long hair and threads his fingers through what is left.

She laughs, a rattling, choking sound, as blood bubbles from her mouth to stain his tunic red.

Cersei used to say they would leave this world just as they came into it—together. She is slipping away, her heart thudding against his chest, relentlessly pumping blood out of her gaping wound, but she is not leaving this world alone: her other half is going with her. The Lannister twins, alike in splendor and cruelty, die here beneath Casterly Rock.

She speaks only one word: "Valonqar."

He shushes her softly. It won't be long.

…

He finds Sansa alone, and as he enters the room where she sits, her eyes flit to him and her mouth opens just a space. He must be a sight: he is covered in blood and so weary in spirit and body that his shoulders slump and his head is bowed.

"Jaime!" she says, finding her feet, the roundness of her body clearly evident beneath her skirts as she hurries forward several paces.

There are things he means to say, something other than _your prisoner is dead_, which is what he had barked at the guard, as he tossed the keys back at the dumbstruck man. No words come to mind, although he frowns to think that no one had seized him, seeing him wild and covered with blood and advancing on their lady's chambers. He'll advise her to have them all replaced.

In place of words, he holds the dagger out before her like an offering, the blood already drying darkly on the blade.

"Gods, Jaime, are you hurt?" she asks, her hands mapping his torso, as if searching for wounds.

She has not seen him this bloodied since the Vale, and her reception of him now is rather different than it was then.

Her panic forces him to speak, "I've carried out the sentence myself, as the Starks would have it done."

"The sentence?" Sansa repeats back, as her hands tighten about his waist.

"Justice," he says, as the dagger clatters to the ground, dropped from his hand, which suddenly can no longer make a fist. "Cersei Lannister."

Once his sister, his twin. Now no longer.

Sansa wavers. Her body sways, and he only just gets his arms around her as her knees give way. He tries with everything in him, but there is not enough strength left in his arms to hold her up, and they both sink to the ground, her blue skirts crumpling around them. Her fingers twine in his bloodied tunic, clutching him close as her body shakes and a strangled sob breaks loose.

Cersei was given to Sansa by the Dragon Queen to do with as she pleased in return for Sansa and the North's submission. He didn't know what to expect in reaction to his rash actions, but if he thought she would be angry that he had usurped her privilege to keep his twin alive and confined or that she might cruelly smile in victory, he was clearly wrong.

"I thought you would never…" she tries to say twice, each time her purpose dissolving in sobs, before he presses his hand over her middle, trying to soothe her and remind her of the babe inside.

She looks up, her pale face blotchy and her eyes swimming in tears. She releases her grip on his tunic to touch his cheeks. She pulls back her hands and he sees what it is that drew her touch: tears. There are tears wetting his cheeks and now her soft hands. Tears and blood and a rivulet of snot that she wipes away with her long sleeve.

"She couldn't come with us," he says simply.

Sansa nods and wraps her arms around his neck, and he pulls her into him as close as he can with her belly between them.

"I thought you would never let go," she manages around hiccups, and it is enough.

He understands.

Relieved. Sansa is relieved.

He had thought it would feel as if his heart had been carved out of his chest, but he was wrong—he is always wrong—for he is relieved as well.

"It's over," he whispers to her, stroking her thick hair. "It's over."

THE END


	6. The Wolf's Den

**Title**: The Wolf's Den  
><strong>Author<strong>: just_a_dram  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: ASOIAF  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Jaime/Sansa  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M+ for language and _explicit_ sexuality; I mean it!  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 6022  
><strong>Summary<strong>: A lion in the wolf's den. He is the interloper. He was the enemy, and there is no proof that he isn't still. He has survived a great deal, but surviving the North and its men might be the true test.  
><strong>Author's Note<strong>: The final part of the A Wolf Among Lions series. But I love this 'verse so much that in the future I might have additional storylines to add.

* * *

><p>The Wolf's Den<p>

This place is a misery. Endless cold that cuts through the skin. Backbreaking work that never seems to result in the progress Jaime would like to see. Winds that howl and keep him awake as much as the nightmares that stalk him when he closes his eyes. It makes him question his path. Question what he has chosen and why. In her absence. With only one of Tommen's cats to warm—reluctantly, for the cat misses his mistress as much as Jaime does, seemingly—his feet and bed at night.

At times he has mightily regretted his efforts to persuade her that this arrangement would be a good one.

…

Jaime hoped that Sansa would be somewhat easier to reason with after she was delivered of the child—a child, who had been placed in his arms as soon as its mother could raise her sweat dampened brow and make the request—because thinking of them in Winterfell without proper shelter didn't become any easier with time. In reasoning with her, he played upon the instinctive protectiveness of a new mother. He intended on persuading her that men should go before her to begin the rebuilding process, so that there would be rooms fit to receive her and their child.

But whereas Sansa was quietly skillful at negotiations, he was still but a novice, who would rather resort to threats. At least he could tell by her silence that she saw some potential merit in his plan. She did not dismiss him outright at any rate.

"Lannister men?" she finally posed, as she looked from the babe—Edwyn, a Stark name of course, but not a doomed one—cradled in her arms to Jaime, standing at her side.

Her tone and look gave nothing away, but it didn't take a vast intellect to guess the source of her hesitation.

He made a face and shrugged. She might have wished for someone else to do the job, but what other men did they have at their disposal?

She clicked her tongue with dissatisfaction. "Lannister men might not be entirely reliable. They're as like to scatter with the first howl of the winter winds as do their work."

"We're not all as cold blooded as you Starks."

Sansa frowned, stroking Edwyn's soft blond hair with her index finger. With his twin's death, Jaime's face had been his own for only a short time: now he shared it with his son. Initially he had been apprehensive that Sansa might be disappointed in Edwyn's Lannister features, so clearly reproduced on the babe's little red face, but the child's mother thought him without question the most perfect creature ever brought into the world.

Instead, it was Jaime who sometimes was made uneasy by it, but he assured himself that mothers determine more substantial characteristics than appearance. Already the babe slept and fed quite contentedly; he was much more obliging than Jaime imagined any Lannister ever being, when noise and trouble could have been made instead. But then, perhaps Tommen and Myrcella were easy babies. They were easy enough as children, after all. He couldn't really say. Prevented from being a father to them, how would he have known enough to make the comparison his heart sometimes urged him to?

"No, I couldn't trust them, sending them off with our supplies. We might lose everything or they might lay down their tools and flee. I'd need someone reliable to see to it that these southern men do the work of rebuilding. Who would oversee them?"

"I will."

He was ready for her question, for this was part of his plan. His announcement is accompanied by a cocksure grin that he hoped would hide the fact that he knew nothing about rebuilding a castle, and therefore, was probably a very poor choice for the job. But he felt compelled to try. With just a few words Sansa had ensured that she could return to Winterfell and stay in relative safety there beyond anyone's grasp, but he could do this for her. He could attempt to prove his worth.

"Is this your way of vanishing forever, ser? To ride off into the North without me? For adventures beyond the Wall?"

She said it lightly enough, gazing almost flirtatiously up at him through her lashes, but he knew better than to believe her little chirps. They hid what truth lay beneath.

"Gods, Winterfell will be far enough north. I've promised I'd see you there safely, and this seems the best way," he says without elaboration.

It was more than the vow waiting to be fulfilled. It had been a great deal more than that for some time, and perhaps she deserved to know that. It had always been so easy with Cersei to say nothing and understand everything—a wordless, shared understanding. When things went unsaid between him and Sansa, however, it simply went unsaid with no guarantee of understanding. But, action always came easier than speeches for him. He would prove himself through action.

He could not help but notice that she did not look at him as she asked, "How soon would you leave?"

"How soon would you been rid of me?"

Jaime recognized immediately that his flippancy was unwelcome. He reached out to draw her reluctant gaze up, holding her chin with a golden hand.

"The sooner I leave, the sooner you might go home."

"I can barely remember it sometimes," she confessed, and the shame he saw there in her eyes made him let her chin slip from his grip.

Still afraid that she has lost herself so fully in a role, once Alayne, then Lady Lannister, that she has lost and forgotten vital pieces of herself, including her home.

"It won't be exactly as you remember it." Not if the reports of its sorry condition weren't greatly exaggerated.

"How long would I need wait?"

He almost spoke out of hand, but he stopped to think before he said, "Eight moons at least. I don't know what kind of weather we might encounter. Deep snows will slow our progress." In reaching Winterfell and in rebuilding.

She drew in a deep breath, before bending over the child to press a kiss to its brow.

"That seems a rather long time."

It would be: they had not been parted as long as one moon's turn, since he had dragged her out of the Vale, weeping for the wrong father. Her level statement was quite nearly an accusation, Jaime was certain, and yet, as he leaned in, a smile tugged at his lips as if he was about to share a great secret with her.

"At the risk of making myself wholly unnecessary, can I tell you something, Lady Sansa?"

Jaime used to worry about Sansa. He had worried about her safety, worried that if he left her side for a moment something might happen to her. Dreaming up violent scenarios, he had pictured the confused girl he'd found in the Vale, hair dyed dark and cheeks stained with tears. He had pictured the broken girl he'd barely taken note of in King's Landing. The one with hollow cheeks and red eyes. Not anymore.

"I think you can take care of yourself," he whispered into her shoulder.

The flush that tinted her cheeks was proof enough of the pride she took in his confidence in her. Other women wanted to be told they were beautiful. Sansa bloomed under praise of a different sort.

"Of course, I can," she said with a dismissive toss of her head, her long hair swishing over her back.

But the flush was still high on her cheeks, as he made a trail of kisses along the curve of her pale neck and tangled his hand in her tresses.

"That is, if you'll even think to trust a one handed knight with no real experience to see to the task," he said with a smirk against her smooth skin.

She leaned away from his kisses and narrowed her eyes.

"I have a trusty steward I'll send to keep an eye on you, ser."

He chuckled, as her little act of defiance was mostly spoiled by the hand she extended to gently run down his right arm until her fingers circled where his wrist ended.

"Besides, your role as my guard is _not_ what makes you necessary," she finished, as her fingers teased the bit of flesh that was exposed between his heavy tunic and golden hand.

There wasn't much feeling there, and her touch was like the flutter of insect wings against his scarred flesh. She sometimes kissed him there, when she had convinced him to remove the golden hand in her presence. He hated to have her see him without it, but he never wanted to be inside of her and over her more than when she insisted upon it being put aside.

"Oh, I tremble to hear what makes me necessary then."

Sansa squeezed hard enough that there was no mistaking the sensation, ruined flesh or no.

"Perhaps I'll tell you in Winterfell."

…

Jaime has been eking out an existence in the shell of Winterfell for several moons under the watchful eye of the steward he had assumed was merely a part of Sansa's joke. It is the irksome steward who informs him that morning that scouts have spied signs of the Lady Lannister's approach and estimated the time she will be within sight of the walls. Jaime advised the man that he should call her Lady Stark if he wanted to remain in the good lady's graces.

Stirred to action, Jaime ordered one of the weaker men to stand watch atop the walls, although they could barely afford to spare him—all hands are needed to continue the work whenever the snow will permit so as to ensure some kind of progress—so he might be informed immediately of the slow approach of carts and ponies, appearing through the blanket of swirling snow. When the shout came down, nearly carried away by the winds, he directed the men to line up flanking either side of the entrance, to properly greet their lady. He spares just a passing thought for the greeting he once received here as part of Robert's royal caravan.

A lion in the wolf's den. If he was Sansa, he might not have trusted him with the task, but her desire to believe in him remakes him as much as his own wish to be something more than before. That means nothing to these northern men, however, who arrived to assist in the rebuilding: they certainly look at him with undisguised suspicion, and he can't blame them. He is the interloper. He was unquestionably the enemy, and there is no proof that he isn't still. It has crossed his mind that if the Lady Stark seems too overly fond of him, when she arrives, they might cease tolerating him altogether.

He has survived a great deal, but surviving the North and its men might be the true test.

He stands beside the other men and shifts his weight, stomping his feet in turn, trying to bring some feeling back to his feet—he doesn't think he'll ever grow accustomed to the biting cold of Sansa's North. He stills as the sound of their approach reaches his ears. He squints through the snow.

"Move," he barks at the young man standing closest to him, although he has no idea what he intends the lad to do.

His order is so unspecific that the young man merely jumps and scrambles uselessly to get further away from Jaime, but he can't be concerned with that. All of his attention is drawn to one thing as the shapes become real and he can make out a mounted figure with unbound hair.

Sansa.

The carts rumble behind her and somewhere within those wagons must be Edwyn, bundled against this cold that cannot be kept out.

The northern men shout first and then a low rumbling chant breaks over all of them.

_Sansa_.

He is not the only one clinging to her name. She is a symbol to them, as she once was to him—a symbol of his last hope for honor and a symbol of their pride and hope for future glory—but she is so much more. She hasn't disappointed him and she will not disappoint them either.

"Assist the lady," Jaime shouts over the clamor of men and horses and wheels at the same young man he had spooked moments earlier, and this time his order bears weight.

Sansa dismounts with assistance, although she looks as if she does not need it, as her red hair—made brighter by the contrast with this land's endless expanses of white—spills over her thick furs and she turns to face the men. Her fur lined boots make fresh prints in the snow as she comes amongst them, walking down their lines, putting out her leather gloved hand to take each of theirs in turn. She knows the names of the Lannisters; she asks each of the northerners what house they represent and says how glad she is of their presence.

He would move forward, present himself to her, but his feet feel frozen to the ground—not a complete impossibility.

Let her greet her men, he tells himself. She does so with such grace, with such genuine pleasure: he suspects that she will not forget any of their names from this moment forward.

Eight moons are long enough to make Sansa's smile seem an almost distant memory. For so long her smiles were nothing but courtesy, after all. He only teased a real one from her on occasion. Until Edwyn. She had smiles a plenty for their son, and thankfully there was nothing to poison her sweet happiness. No constant reminder of things past lurking beneath her feet or chained to a baggage cart.

Unless he himself is a dark reminder.

The bleak, dispiriting thought washes over him as she turns her smile on him and reaches out to take his hand. He offers her his left and her gaze flickers to his right for the briefest of moments.

"Ser," she says with a nod, her hair whipping about her face.

"My lady."

"You've done well," she says, as she looks over his shoulder, her eyes dancing over the buildings they have rebuilt and those that are still in ruin, piles of scorched rubble heaped with snow.

It is better than when they arrived, but there is still much to do. He can see that mingling with the hope in her blue eyes there is sadness lurking. This is not the Winterfell of her youth. Nor will it ever be.

Look forward, he wants to urge her. Don't look back.

She lets his hand slip, as she turns away from him, addressing the men, who crowd in, breaking the ranks Jaime insisted upon for her arrival, as the mountain ponies and wagons pour through the entrance.

"Lannisters and northern men alike," she shouts out to them. "This is a winter that will make northerners of us all. We shall raise Winterfell together. We shall make House Stark a power once more. We shall forge a powerful alliance between us two. We shall all be brothers."

Whatever divisions exist between the men, they are united in their love for her even more so than by her babe, Edwyn, equal parts Lannister and Stark, whom most of them have never laid eyes upon. Power can be won through intrigue, fear, and cunning. She certainly was taught well enough in those methods, and she can adeptly play and win at that game, but Sansa's real strength is in something much rarer.

He goes to one knee amidst the whoops, and the snow wets him through his breeches immediately.

"Lady Stark," he declares, loud enough to be heard over the shouting.

Her furs sweep through the snow as she turns to him once more. Her hand is light upon his shoulder and even lighter as she brushes the ice in his beard, and he bows his head.

…

He barely waits for her answer before he opens the wooden door to her chamber and kicks it closed behind him with a heavy thud.

In the company of others they have spent the hours since her arrival discussing what has been accomplished at Winterfell thus far and what their next plans should be. The strain of being so close to her and yet entirely constrained reminded him painfully of his past and set his teeth on edge. As soon as the men retired to the hall in which they slept shoulder to shoulder with a roaring fire keeping away the worst of the chill, he found his feet guiding him to her chamber.

She might send him away. This is her sanctuary. Even in Casterly Rock he never dared disturb her within her chambers. She came to him. Not the other way around.

This is quite the opposite of prudence, coming to her like this, when only this morning he worried about his safety among these northerners—they wouldn't like the Kingslayer's cock buried in their Lady Stark—but the blood pounding through his veins as his eyes rake her form cares nothing for reason.

She looks up from whatever it is she is folding—some heavy gown that in these conditions still won't be enough to keep her warm without the benefit of furs—and speaks to softly scold him, "You have only just missed my serving girl."

"It's a good thing I didn't come here to see your serving girl," he says, as he moves towards her, crossing the room in long legged strides.

She turns her back to him, smoothing out the folded gown over the trunk she has been unpacking, but he doesn't let her seeming disinterest deter him, as he slips his arms around her and buries his face in the crook of her neck.

"And what would we have done if you had come here before she had left?" she continues, even as his hand flattens over her middle, pressing downward over her pelvis until he cups her through her gown.

"I'd have told her to bloody leave," he growls against her neck.

"You're impulsiveness, Jaime," she says on a sigh.

She might be frustrated with him, but she rocks back into him and her hands settle over his wrists, holding them fast to her. Whatever doubts that coiled in his chest about what would become of _them_ here in Winterfell unravel at her touch, so that his heart beats unimpeded for the first time since midday.

"I waited eight moons and all afternoon, my lady. That seemed long enough."

"Then I'm surprised you waited this long," she says, leaning her cheek against the crown of his head.

"It's only because I was worried your northern men would slit my throat if I dared so much as cast eyes upon you. That is, until you declared us all brothers today," he says, laughing low.

She jerks in his grasp, her mood spoiled, but he attempts to appease her with a kiss below her ear.

"No, it was well done, Sansa. They love you. They all love you," he murmurs, and he can feel her muscles begin to relax once more.

"I want their respect."

"You'll have it. They'll willingly give it."

It is like their old game, where he speaks to her of her future in Winterfell as a promise as much as a seduction, except now they are actually here, now it's real.

"And I won't allow anyone to do you harm under my roof," she whispers.

A woman—barely more than a slip of a girl—between himself and death, and he believes she's more than capable of doing the job.

"I best not step outside these walls then."

She twists in his arms until she faces him, and he would take the opportunity to taste her lips, but she raises a hand between them and places it squarely against his chest, stopping him without the barest pressure.

"They might as easily slit mine."

"I'd never let anyone get close enough. If someone looks at you the wrong way, I'll kill them," he vows, and her hand twists in his tunic.

Her eyes are great pools of black, as if she wants him the way he wants her, but perhaps she has more control than he does. Sansa is careful where he is rash, and he undeniably complicates her place here amongst her people.

"Would you rather I retired to my own chamber?" he asks with raised brows.

"No. I'd have you inside me now, but only if you'll promise not to anger the men needlessly."

He would promise her anything given her statement.

"I will need to elevate northerners within my circle, so they don't feel outdone by the Lannisters. You must try to get along with them. For my sake, for Edwyn's sake."

It dawns on him that he did not see his son's cradle. He always slept alongside his mother's bed in Casterly Rock, in the wooden cradle carved with prowling wolves and lions given to him by Tyrion on the advent of his birth.

"Where is the little lordling?" he asks, his eyes casting about the room.

"With his wet nurse."

That would explain how Sansa was able to sit with her men for as many hours as she did without retiring with the babe. That she would give him over to a nurse is somewhat astonishing, however, when she took such obvious delight in his care.

"My milk dried up."

Not by choice then.

There's something in her tone that compels him to reassure her, "That happens sometimes, Sansa."

"I know," she murmurs, stepping closer to him so that her skirts intertwine with his legs, though her hand still lingers on his chest like a barrier.

There will be no reunion then between him and his son.

His breath catches in his throat and he works to swallow. Finally he is able to ask, "Is he well?"

"Perfectly; although, I'm afraid he wasn't much impressed with his inheritance today."

The always happy babe had wailed loudly at being removed from his wagon and shown Winterfell, and Jaime felt sorry for the tightly swaddled child, who was no doubt shocked by the aching cold and tired from his long journey. Sansa cooed and fussed, but he would do nothing but cry. One of the northern men had announced to all that the boy had strong lungs meant to command, however, which seemingly cleared whatever distress clouded Sansa's countenance.

"Tomorrow I'll bring him to you," she promises.

She taps her finger against his chest, her tone more firm as she says, "You've changed the subject, ser."

"Yes, being inside of you was it?" he asks, his hand slipping low to squeeze her arse.

She bats at him and scowls though he holds fast.

"You must promise, Jaime."

He pats her rounded cheek, as he says with mock solemnity, "I have been playing nicely for eight moons, _my lady_, and I will continue to do so, but right now I want…"

She cuts off whatever vulgarity he is about to speak by pressing her mouth—impossibly warm in this cold night air—to his.

He needs no further encouragement: he scoops her up to carry her to the bed, and she gives no protest, as her arms cling tightly about his neck. He would fuck her here with her back against the stone wall or on their knees on the freshly rushed floor, but the chill in the room is so severe despite the fire that he thinks it might unman him entirely. He intends on enjoying her beneath the new furs that drape her bed until they're both limp with exhaustion, he thinks, as he lowers her down and covers her body with his own.

It's a desperate tear of laces, clasps, and layers using teeth and hands, as they work to reach skin. He can't possibly feel her against him quickly enough, even if it means he leaves this room to walk frigid halls with his clothes in tatters. Each inch of skin that is revealed makes him harder with the promise of mapping her body with his hand, of kissing her tender spots, of being inside of her until she sobs with release.

She is very nearly bare to him, and he has flipped her body over twice, unable to get enough of touching, tasting, and seeing her, when he makes the mistake of running his right hand—no, stump—up her thigh. He goes cold, his gut clenches. She manages to catch him above where his hand should begin before he can yank it away.

She licks her lips, breathing somewhat hard through her nose.

Her tone is mild and calm as if she speaks to a jittery mount, "You weren't wearing it all day."

"It nearly froze to me on the road. Why, does it bother you?" A wooden one could easily be made or one of boiled leather, although he has become accustomed to doing without—the damn thing always was practically useless.

She shakes her head.

"I never cared for the false one," she says, as she trails a thumb over the inside of his wrist.

It still does him good to hear it.

He hurriedly pushes her linen shift up over her breasts—no longer swollen with milk—with his one remaining hand and presses an open mouth kiss below her navel, as his fingers dance lightly over her hardening nipple. Kissing his way over her hip bone—still in sharp relief to the rest of her rounded curves despite having carried his son—and down her soft thigh, he listens to her breath hitch as her legs move restlessly against him. He nudges her thighs apart with his nose, his hand sliding down to grip her hip to hold her firmly in place.

He has made no real progress, when she says his name with such urgency that he raises his head. Her hand is outstretched to him.

"I meant what I said." Her heel drags over his back, digging in to urge him up. "Come up here, please."

The 'please' is so very Sansa, so courteous even as he is about to lathe her with his tongue, that he can't help but grin.

"What is it you want?" he asks hoarsely, as he hauls himself up over her.

She struggles onto her elbows and tugs, pulling her shift over her head.

"Off," she demands, nodding at his smallclothes.

He raises one arched brow, pausing to ask, "What is it you want?"

She looks at him as if he is mad, lips pursed and eyes narrowed, and in spite of his mockery—he only wants to hear her say it—he hastily complies with her order.

As he settles against her and grabs her arse to draw her forcefully against him, she says on a shaky sigh, "I missed this."

As if to prove her point, she snakes an arm between them and her delicate hand is suddenly tight around his cock.

It feels impossibly good after he's only had a left hand for company, and for a moment he can think of nothing but the stroke of her palm against him, but he wants to hear the words on her tongue. She's so composed and graceful, so tender by nature that he longs to hear her voice it, to have confirmation of some demanding need, of something as fierce as her love for Edwyn or her desire for home that is solely to do with him.

"Missed what?" he manages to grit out between clenched teeth.

Her answer is merely a satisfied hum as she rubs his head against herself.

"I want to hear you say it," he growls, as he bites her earlobe. Only he can give her this: he's certain of that much. She saves herself for him.

He doesn't have a chance to miss her hand, when she pulls back to press it to his cheek and whispers, "I missed you."

Suddenly it's as if the wind has been knocked out of him, as he stares down at her.

It isn't what he was expecting. He thought her pink lips might say something perfectly unladylike and then he'd devour her words. This is so much better that he wonders for a moment if he has dreamt it.

"Jaime?" she says faintly, as she brushes back the hair that falls forward into his face.

He pushes forward, and she's warm and wet and perfect, and he squeezes his eyes shut hard, his fingers digging into her arse. He doesn't know how else to show her how good, how her words have knit him together, how her presence in his life have given him a reason to go on living. He withdraws almost entirely from her, and her fingers twist tightly in his hair.

"Don't go," she begs.

Never.

He bites at her neck, as his hips snap back, driving into her again.

"Gods, I've missed you," he groans. With her near, there's no question of his path.

She's saying yes over and over, her lips wet against his shoulder, and he doesn't know what she's saying yes to other than this and them, so he sets up a rhythm that is faster than she usually likes, but it doesn't seem to matter. Her breath comes quick and hot against his face and she rocks against him, reaching up to meet his thrusts in perfect concert as though they have not been parted all these moons.

He pulls at her pulse, feeling it flutter under his lips, nipping and soothing the hurt in turn. Beyond all reason, they're both alive, survivors of war, treachery, and dragon fire. Her head lolls to the side with a moan, and he stretches his hand up, fitting two long fingers between her lips, where her tongue is as hot and wet as her cunt and she sucks him further into her mouth.

Under the heavy furs, their bodies are slick together, and each time they come together he's that much closer to spilling inside of her. His one arm, balancing his weight, shakes with the effort of holding back. He's losing himself in her, his heart is beating out of his chest, and this will all be over too quickly.

He curses, his wet fingers slipping from her mouth, because his stomach muscles are contracting and he's going to have to pull out of her to gain back some semblance of control, but she hooks her leg over his back and murmurs in his ear, "Come for me."

He's lost: a couple of uncontrolled thrusts and his eyes slam shut and his hand fists in the mattress tick.

As soon as he can summon the strength, he rolls them both, so that she is atop him, and while he is still hard, he intends for her to find her release, something she seems to understand. Her hips sway over him, her thighs tense around his waist, her hands splayed atop his chest. It doesn't take long. As he feels her tighten around him, slick with his seed, her nails digging into his flesh, he pulls her down until he can take her rosy nipple in his mouth, and it's enough.

She's never more beautiful than in this moment.

She falls onto his chest, her cheek pressed into his sweaty chest as she pants and shakes. He skates his hand over her back, while her breathing evens out, and presses a kiss to the crown of her head. She shifts enough that he slips from her, and he's sorry for it only because he wishes he could pull her inside of himself and keep her there. He may simply have to take her again before the day dawns afresh.

Her head still tucked against him, she blindly runs a hand over his heavy beard.

"You look a proper lion with this mane."

"It's too bloody cold to shave."

"Are you under there?" she asks lightly, as she takes hold and tugs.

He flips her over and glares down with feigned affront. Her eyes twinkle back at him mischieviously.

"Careful: it's attached, my love."

She goes very still at his words.

Her voice is small and uncertain or maybe even hopeful, when she asks, "Do you mean it?"

He doesn't know what she means. His brow furrows and he smiles at her. "Yes, it's a real beard," he teases, as he traces her sloped nose with his finger.

She shakes her head, biting her lip so hard that it goes white.

"Do you believe love is a poison?"

He stiffens. That doesn't sound like Sansa; it sounds like something his sister would avow.

He knows something of love: it has guided his path through life, for better or worse. It has made him be brave and made him be terrible. That much hasn't changed. He would still choose to protect those he loves over the honorable path.

"Depends on who you love."

It's easier to be a good man, when you love a good woman.

Her voice trembles as she whispers to him, "You saved me."

He can't take the credit for that, not even if her belief in that is what has bound her heart to him. "You saved yourself, Sansa."

"But, you did," she insists. "You found me in the Vale."

"Yes." But that was only the beginning.

"And you didn't love me when you took me from the Vale."

Sansa's face is a wordless question. She knows he did not love her initially. That he came for her for a different reason entirely. What she wants to know has nothing to do with the distant past.

He scrubs his face with his hand.

"No, but I have loved you since." Sansa and Edwyn are what matter to him in this frozen hell.

He can see where she might believe love could poison, but she shouldn't be afraid of her ability to love and inspire love in others. In a world this bleak, that is Sansa Stark's real strength. It has made him kneel at her feet; it will make other men do the same, as she creates the future for this North of hers.

"Does that frighten you?" he asks, grabbing her hand and squeezing.

He knows his loving her isn't convenient or appropriate, that allowing it has created problems for her. It wasn't the astute choice when they were within reach of King's Landing. It wasn't without complications as the Lady of Casterly Rock with his brother for a lord husband. And it certainly isn't going to be easy with the whole of the North watching her. Given their families' histories, they are supposed to be each other's sworn enemies, and that is not entirely in the past: Lady Stoneheart would still happily see him swing from a tree, should she learn what Sansa Stark did at night and with whom.

"No. I was afraid of the opposite," she says, looking past him. "I told you once that you were necessary to me."

"Not because of my considerable skill as a one handed swordsman," he said, tapping their clasped hands on her breast. He remembered.

"No, because I love you too. So, I chose to forgive you…and myself."

He meant all along to save Sansa, but she has saved them both. She has made him better. She has given him a purpose, a family, and she has given him her heart when it was not sensible to do so.

Bending down, he kisses her, an act of thanks that will never be enough to repay his debt.

It will never be a suitable match, it will never be wholly free from difficulty or danger, but it will never be a poison either. Not to either of them. That is his new vow, and one he intends to keep.

THE END


End file.
